Steadily over the past decade, they’ve begun to disappear. Open gaps are left on the shelves above blank plastic labels.

Where have the journals gone? They’ve gone virtual.

A not-so-obvious revolution is taking place in academia globally as electronic media displaces the printed word. The transition has created widespread implications that are changing the way professors circulate and share their scholarly work, the way students gather research, the way librarians archive and the way journal editors publish.

“We’re moving into this online, completely digital age,” said professor Mark Watson, UO associate university librarian for collections and access. “We’re being propelled by forces we can’t ignore. We have to deal with them.”

Over the past few decades, Watson has watched these forces build. The nature of modern scholarship has led to increasing specialization, dividing disciplines into myriad subgenres. Fifty years ago, nanotechnology didn’t exist. Today there are half a dozen journals on the topic. But not as many people are interested in journals or scholarly monographs with such narrow focus. At the same time subscriptions declined, the cost of paper and mailing rose. To counteract the losses, publishers pursued alternatives.

“Through the ’90s we watched the price for the academic publication skyrocket,” Watson said. A study conducted by the Association of Research Libraries found that from 1986 to 1997, the unit cost of serials rose 169 percent. Facing archiving space concerns and budgetary pressures, university libraries couldn’t meet the higher subscription costs or buy as many scholarly books.

The stress has been building for both publishers and libraries, with unavoidable pressures and imperfect solutions.

HOLDING ON TO PRINT

Atop a bookshelf on the third floor of the UO’s 120-year-old Villard Hall rests a dusty 1949 copy of the Comparative Literature journal. The hand-lettered, grayscale cover with a rich textured finish reads: volume 1, issue 2. This lone copy is historical in more than one way.

Comparative Literature is the oldest in its field and has garnered international renown thanks to a prestigious editorial board. Since journal editor and UO English professor George Rowe inherited the production duties eleven years ago, he has maintained the journal’s established tradition.

Today’s tomes remain the same oblong shape, with the standard 96 pages and 550 words per page. The price remains affordable at $60 per year, significantly lower than most print journals. But the days of print-only publication are numbered, said Rowe: “We have no choice but to change.”

The choice they do have is whether to stay independent or join an online database such as Project MUSE, which sells electronic subscriptions of more than 200 journals. The price can be as high as $24,000 for the premium package and Rowe worries that while the journal could reach more readers, its 650 international subscribers could be priced out.

Rowe admits there are upsides to going electronic, something with which he has first-hand experience since the back issues of the journal, years 1949 to 2003, have been uploaded to an online journal archive. Now with a few mouse clicks Rowe can bring articles up on the screen from the same 1949 issue that sits on the shelf.

“It’s readable. It’s searchable,” he said. “It really is amazing.”

But it’s unlikely Comparative Literature will ever give up hard copies completely. The print format not only commands a greater respect in the field, it provides a measure of control for copyright issues, along with a steady revenue stream.

“Keeping print is not simply a matter of nostalgia; it’s a necessity,” said Rowe. As the official journal of the American Comparative Literature Association, it’s critical that they provide their members with a way to subscribe individually, which becomes more complicated and, surprisingly, more expensive to do in electronic format.

It’s a complex decision for publishers like Rowe, but many have avidly adopted the electronic format, claiming it allows their journals to take on added dimensions.

A WIDER BANDWIDTH

Movie frames and audio clips have complemented the essays of Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media since it became an all-electronic publication in 2001. The nonprofit journal also now publishes a greater abundance of articles since it’s not limited by print space, said UO English professor emerita Julia Lesage, who in 1974 co-founded the journal, which publishes material on film, television, video and related media and cultural analysis.

The publication has retained its editorial board of scholars who review submissions to the journal. What makes it unusual is that it’s both online and free, which allows the journal to reach a much wider audience. As a print publication they had 4,000 subscribers each year. Now 3,000 people each month read the journal online.

“We’ve always thought that the function of the Internet was to fulfill its promise of making intellectual life available to the public,” Lesage said. “There’s no reason to have a narrow funnel for intellectual information to trickle out to people at institutions who can afford to subscribe.”

Lesage realizes her enthusiasm about the transition to electronic format is somewhat unique in academia, but says it won’t be for long. “Resistance will pass with the passing of this generation. There’s no sense in fighting it,” she said.

SCIENTISTS: THE EARLY ADOPTERS

Every morning UO physics professor Dietrich Belitz checks his RSS feeds. These daily notifications alert him to new research papers in his field, uploaded to servers such as arXiv.org, an open access archive of more than 400,000 preprint scientific papers.

“This is where people really put their stuff when they’re done,” said Belitz. By the time articles are published in journals, the findings are old news; they’ve been circulating electronically for years.

“Academic journals are an afterthought,” Belitz said. “I never read articles in bound journals anymore.”

But unlike academic journals, preprint servers aren’t controlled for quality. There’s no editorial board deciding what is published. Without the peer-review of editorial boards, the work printed in them generally doesn’t “count” toward tenure requirements. But these servers still act as a tool for sharing the latest research in a less rigid way.

HOW THE HUMANITIES DIFFER

Humanities scholars aren’t pressured in the same way as scientists to disseminate research in a timely manner.

“In humanities we don’t publish ‘works in progress,’” said Scott Pratt, UO philosophy professor and acting associate dean of humanities. “We publish finished work.”

Also, certain disciplines are just slower to change, said Ellen Herman, UO history professor.

“In history we study the past. We’re devoted to the sorts of materials that existed in the past, like manuscripts and documents.”

This appreciation for traditional media has made some scholars more resistant to publishing work electronically. But they’re taking small steps. The UO’s departments of history, English and philosophy have recently revised their tenure requirements to allow for electronic formats.

The transition is necessary, Pratt admitted, because in book-centric disciplines like the humanities there’s even more pressure to publish printed work – even as there are fewer and fewer publishers.

“Electronic publication has the potential to offset the problem of fewer (publishing) venues,” Pratt said. “We’re not there yet . . . but that’s where we’re headed.”

SELF-PUBLISHING ONLINE

UO professor Steve Hsu often posts his scholarly work on his blog.

Herman’s recent work is an example of where scholarly work may be headed. She created a website, The Adoption History Project, which both shares her research and serves as a public reserve of accessible documentary sources.

“I would be delighted if students and scholars find my website useful, but I still think of it very much as a kind of public service,” she said. Despite its scholarly content, she can’t advise faculty without tenure to do work like hers.

“Until you get tenure, you’d be foolish to focus on work that’s published only in electronic format,” she said.

UO professor Steve Hsu agrees, but finds that publishing online has been a good complement to more traditional academic publishing venues. The physicist has been posting his academic research on his blog since 2004. Though he didn’t start blogging for academic purposes, he’s found that its nature as a forum for discussion allows for exchanging ideas in a relaxed manner.

“In physics we publish research papers. The style is formal and you have to sit down and block out time to read them. If you have casual questions for the author, say about background, you can’t just ask,” Hsu said. Another useful aspect of blogging is that it connects academics to each other around the world and to people who aren’t part of the academic community, said

UO economics professor Mark Thoma, who started blogging two years ago. People have visited his site more than 1.6 million times and his daily average readership is about 7,000. In popular economics, Thoma’s blog has made him an internationally known figure, but it doesn’t directly affect his position in academia.

“I’m not sure that the academic community quite knows how to treat blogs,” Thoma said. “People aren’t quite sure what we’re doing. You’re not going to get a lot of credit for blogging as an academic endeavor.”

GETTING CREDIT

Two heavy boxes sit in the floor of Russell Tomlin’s office. Tomlin, UO vice provost for academic affairs, oversees the promotion and tenure decisions university-wide. The boxes are jammed full of printed materials; it’s the case file for a tenure candidate.

Though most of the materials brought forth for tenure are still printed, Tomlin said, “We’re not concerned about the format, whether it’s print or electronic.”

The main concern is whether the research is original, whether it’s significant nationally or internationally and whether it’s been reviewed by an independent group of scholars from the same field.

“UO doesn’t prohibit electronic publication, but the burden of proof lies with the faculty member to show that it’s been reviewed,” Tomlin said. “If there is a prejudice, it’s in the peer review. That’s the nature of American higher education. The quality is grounded in peer review. It has nothing to do with popularity.”

—-KC